1 – When assessing new suppliers do you feel it is important to receive a printed brochure?

2 – With existing suppliers do you feel it is necessary to receive a printed brochure annually?

3 – By which method do you prefer to receive proposals from new suppliers? 

4 – By which method do you prefer to receive proposals from existing suppliers?

5 – When presenting a proposal to a third party (colleague, client, etc.) which of the following do you wish to have?

An e-Brochure was attached to the original e-mail survey. This was a word document containing the same information as the Taste of the Vine printed brochure. Survey recipients were asked the following question.

6 – Does the attached e-brochure fulfill the requirements of a printed brochure?

Additional Comments Made
Quite a number of respondents kindly gave additional thoughts in favour of printed materials for the following reasons:- They are more impressive when presenting to senior management
- They acts as an aide memoire when leafing through files for ideas
- Differences in operating system software. 3% could not open the e-brochure
- More pictures were needed (more pictures, more memory on the e-Brochure)
- One respondent wanted something to touch! - We were of course flattered, though declined!

Summary
In summary it seems that most felt that the e-Brochure was sufficient in content, though judging from the answer to question 1, something tangible as well as the information was required for those assessing a new supplier, though for a far smaller proportion of those dealing with existing suppliers.

Based on the above findings Taste of the Vine will be reprinting a brochure, though will donate £250 to WWF anyhow. We will conduct a similar survey next year to see how the position has changed. Watch this space!